The open earnestness of the young man was distasteful to Ken, for he felt in it something that he himself had long since lost. “Talent,” he said bitterly. “A small, one-story talent—that is the most treacherous thing that God can give. To work on and on, hoping, believing until youth is wasted—I have seen this sort of thing so much. A small talent is God’s greatest curse.”
“But how do you know I have a small talent—how do you know it’s not great? You don’t know—you’ve never read a word I’ve written!” he said indignantly.
“I wasn’t thinking about you in particular. I was just talking abstractly.”
The smell of gas was strong in the room—smoke lay in drafty layers close to the low ceiling. The floor was cold and Ken reached for a pillow nearby and sat on it. “What kind of things do you write?”
“My last book is about a man called Brown—I wanted it to be a common name, as a symbol of general humanity. He loves his wife and he has to kill her because—”
“Don’t say anything more. A writer should never tell his work in advance. Besides, I’ve heard it all before.”
“How could you? I never told you, finished telling—”
“It’s the same thing in the end,” Ken said. “I heard the whole thing seven years—eight years ago in this room.”
The flushed face paled suddenly. “Mr. Harris, although you’ve written two published books, I think you’re a mean man.” His voice rose. “Don’t pick on me!”
The young man stood up, zipped his leather jacket and stood sullenly in a corner of the room.
After some moments Ken began to wonder why he was there. He knew no one at the party except his host and the picture of the garbage dump and the two suns irritated him. In the room of strangers there was no voice to guide him and the sherry was sharp in his dry mouth. Without saying good-by to anyone Ken left the room and went downstairs.
He remembered he had no money and would have to walk home. It was still snowing, and the wind shrilled at the street corners and the temperature was nearing zero. He was many blocks away from home when he saw a drug store at a familiar corner and the thought of hot coffee came to him. If he could just drink some really hot coffee, holding his hands around the cup, then his brain would clear and he would have the strength to hurry home and face his wife and the thing that was going to happen when he was home. Then something occurred that in the beginning seemed ordinary, even natural. A man in a Homburg hat was about to pass him on the deserted street and when they were quite near Ken said: “Hello there, it’s about zero, isn’t it?”
The man hesitated for a moment.
“Wait,” he went on. “I’m in something of a predicament. I’ve lost my money—never mind how—and I wonder if you would give me change for a cup of coffee.”
When the words were spoken Ken realized suddenly that the situation was not ordinary and he and the stranger exchanged that look of mutual shame, distrust, between the beggar and the begged. Ken stood with his hands in his pockets—he had lost his gloves somewhere—and the stranger glanced a final time at him, then hurried away.
“Wait,” Ken called. “You think I’m a mugger—I’m not! I’m a writer—I’m not a criminal.”
The stranger hurried to the other side of the street, his brief case bouncing against his knees as he moved. Ken reached home after midnight.
Marian was in bed with a glass of milk on the bedside table. He made himself a highball and brought it in the bedroom, although usually these days he gulped liquor in secret and quickly.
“Where is the clock?”
“In the clothes hamper.”
He found the clock and put it on the table by the milk. Marian gave him a strange stare.
“How was your party?”
“Awful.” After a while he added, “This city is a desolate place. The parties, the people—the suspicious strangers.”
“You are the one who always likes parties.”
“No, I don’t. Not any more.” He sat on the twin bed beside Marian and suddenly the tears came to his eyes. “Hon, what happened to the apple farm?”
“Apple farm?”
“Our apple farm—don’t you remember?”
“It was so many years ago and so much has happened.”
But although the dream had long since been forgotten, its freshness was renewed again. He could see the apple blossoms in the spring rain, the gray old farmhouse. He was milking at dawn, then tending the vegetable garden with the green curled lettuce, the dusty summer corn, the eggplant and the purple cabbages iridescent in the dew. The country breakfast would be pancakes and the sausage of home-raised pork. When morning chores and breakfast were done, he would work at his novel for four hours, then in the afternoon there were fences to be mended, wood to be split. He saw the farm in all its weathers—the snowbound spells when he would finish a whole short novel at one stretch; the mild, sweet, luminous days of May; the green summer pond where he fished for their own trout; the blue October and the apples. The dream, unblemished by reality, was vivid, exact.
“And in the evening,” he said, seeing the firelight and the rise and fall of shadows on the farmhouse wall, “we would really study Shakespeare, and read the Bible all the way through.”
For a moment Marian was caught in the dream. “That was the first year we were married,” she said in a tone of injury or surprise. “And after the apple farm was started we were going to start a child.”
“I remember,” he said vaguely, although this was a part he had quite forgotten. He saw an indefinite little boy of six or so in denim jeans . . . then the child vanished and he saw himself clearly, on the horse—or rather mule—carrying the finished manuscript of a great novel on the way to the nearest village to post it to the publisher.
“We could live on almost nothing—and live well. I would do all the work—manual work is what pays nowadays—raise everything we eat. We’ll have our own hogs and a cow and chickens.” After a pause he added, “There won’t even be a liquor bill. I will make cider and applejack. Have a press and all.”
“I’m tired,” Marian said, and she touched her fingers to her forehead.
“There will be no more New York parties and in the evening we’ll read the Bible all the way through. I’ve never read the Bible all the way through, have you?”
“No,” she said, “but you don’t have to have an apple farm to read the Bible.”
“Maybe I have to have the apple farm to read the Bible and to write well too.”
“Well, tant pis.” The French phrase infuriated him; for a year before they were married she had taught French in high school and occasionally when she was peeved or disappointed with him she used a French phrase that often he did not understand.
He felt a gathering tension between them that he wanted at all cost to wear through. He sat on the bed, hunched and miserable, gazing at the prints on the bedroom wall. “You see, something so screwy has happened to my sights. When I was young I was sure I was going to be a great writer. And then the years passed—I settled on being a fine minor writer. Can you feel the dying fall of this?”
“No, I’m exhausted,” she said after a while. “I have been thinking of the Bible too, this last year. One of the first commandments is Thou shalt have no other gods before me! But you and other people like you have made a god of this—illusion. You disregard all other responsibilities—family, finances and even self-respect. You disregard anything that might interfere with your strange god. The golden calf was nothing to this.”
“And after settling to be a minor writer I had to lower my sights still further. I wrote scripts for television and tried to become a competent hack. But I failed even to carry that through. Can you understand the horror? I’ve even become mean-hearted, jealous—I was never that way before. I was a pretty good person when I was happy. The last and final thing is to give up and get a job writing advertising. Can you understand the horror?”
“I’ve often thought that might be a solution. Anyth
ing, darling, to restore your self-respect.”
“Yes,” he said. “But I’d rather get a job in a morgue or fry hot dogs.”
Her eyes were apprehensive. “It’s late. Get to bed.”
“At the apple farm I would work so hard—laboring work as well as writing. And it would be peaceful and—safe. Why can’t we do it, Baby-love?”
She was cutting a hangnail and did not even look at him.
“Maybe I could borrow from your Aunt Rose—in a strictly legal, banking way. With business mortgages on the farm and the crops. And I would dedicate the first book to her.”
“Borrow from—not my Aunt Rose!” Marian put the scissors on the table. “I’m going to sleep.”
“Why don’t you believe in me—and the apple farm? Why don’t you want it? It would be so peaceful and—safe. We would be alone and far away—why don’t you want it?”
Her black eyes were wide open and he saw in them an expression he had seen only once before. “Because,” she said deliberately, “I wouldn’t be alone and far away with you on that crazy apple farm for anything—without doctors, friends and help.” The apprehension had quickened to fright and her eyes glowed with fear. Her hands picked at the sheet.
Ken’s voice was shocked. “Baby, you’re not afraid of me! Why, I wouldn’t touch your smallest eyelash. I don’t even want the wind to blow on you—I couldn’t hurt—”
Marian settled her pillow and, turning her back, lay down. “All right. Good night.”
For a while he sat dazed, then he knelt on the floor beside Marian’s bed and his hand rested gently on her buttocks. The dull pulse of desire was prompted by the touch. “Come! I’ll take off my clothes. Let’s cozy.” He waited, but she did not move or answer.
“Come, Baby-love.”
“No,” she said. But his love was rising and he did not notice her words—his hand trembled and the fingernails were dingy against the white blanket. “No more,” she said. “Not ever.”
“Please, love. Then afterward we can be at peace and can sleep. Darling, darling, you’re all I have. You’re the gold in my life!”
Marian pushed his hand away and sat up abruptly. The fear was replaced by a flash of anger, and the blue vein was prominent on her temple. “Gold in your life—” Her voice intended irony but somehow failed. “In any case—I’m your bread and butter.”
The insult of the words reached him slowly, then anger leaped as sudden as a flame, “I—I—”
“You think you’re the only one who has been disappointed. I married a writer who I thought would become a great writer. I was glad to support you—I thought it would pay off. So I worked at an office while you could sit there—lowering your sights. God, what has happened to us?”
“I—I—” But rage would not yet let him speak.
“Maybe you could have been helped. If you had gone to the doctor when that block started. We’ve both known for a long time you are—sick.”
Again he saw the expression he had seen before—it was the look that was the only thing he remembered in that awful blackout—the black eyes brilliant with fear and the prominent temple vein. He caught, reflected the same expression, so that their eyes were fixed for a time, blazing with terror.
Unable to stand this, Ken picked up the scissors from the bedside table and held them above his head, his eyes fixed on her temple vein. “Sick!” he said at last. “You mean—crazy. I’ll teach you to be afraid that I am crazy. I’ll teach you to talk about bread and butter. I’ll teach you to think I’m crazy!”
Marian’s eyes sparkled with alarm and she tried weakly to move. The vein writhed in her temple. “Don’t you move.” Then with a great effort he opened his hand and the scissors fell on the carpeted floor. “Sorry,” he said. “Excuse me.” After a dazed look around the room he saw the typewriter and went to it quickly.
“I’ll take the typewriter in the living room. I didn’t finish my quota today—you have to be disciplined about things like that.”
He sat at the typewriter in the living room, alternating X and R for the sound. After some lines of this he paused and said in an empty voice: “This story is sitting up on its hind legs at last.” Then he began to write: The lazy brown fox jumped over the cunning dog. He wrote this a number of times, then leaned back in his chair.
“Dearest Pie,” he said urgently. “You know how I love you. You’re the only woman I ever thought about. You’re my life. Don’t you understand, my dearest Pie?”
She didn’t answer and the apartment was silent except for the rumble of the radiator pipes.
“Forgive me,” he said. “I’m so sorry I picked up the scissors. You know I wouldn’t even pinch you too hard. Tell me you forgive me. Please, please tell me.”
Still there was no answer.
“I’m going to be a good husband. I’ll even get a job in an advertising office. I’ll be a Sunday poet—writing only on weekends and holidays. I will, my darling, I will!” he said desperately. “Although I’d much rather fry hot dogs in the morgue.”
Was it the snow that made the rooms so silent? He was conscious of his own heart beating and he wrote:
Why am I so afraid
Why am I so afraid
Why am I so afraid???
He got up and in the kitchen opened the icebox door. “Hon, I’m going to fix you something good to eat. What’s that dark thing in the saucer in the corner? Why, it’s the liver from last Sunday’s dinner—you’re crazy about chicken liver or would you rather have something piping hot like soup? Which, Hon?”
There was no sound.
“I bet you haven’t even eaten a bite of supper. You must be exhausted—with those awful parties and drinking and walking—without a living bite. I have to take care of you. We’ll eat and afterward we can cozy.”
He stood still, listening. Then, with the grease-jelled chicken liver in his hands, he tiptoed to the bedroom. The room and bath were both empty. Carefully he placed the chicken liver on the white bureau scarf. Then he stood in the doorway, his foot raised to walk and left suspended for some moments. Afterward he opened closets, even the broom closet in the kitchen, looked behind furniture and peered under the bed. Marian was nowhere at all. Finally he realized that the leopard coat and her purse were gone. He was panting when he sat down to telephone.
“Hey, Doctor. Ken Harris speaking. My wife has disappeared. Just walked out while I was writing at the typewriter. Is she with you? Did she phone?” He made squares and wavy lines on the pad. “Hell yes, we quarreled! I picked up the scissors—no, I did not touch her! I wouldn’t hurt her little fingernail. No, she’s not hurt—how did you get that idea?” Ken listened. “I just want to tell you this. I know you have hypnotized my wife—poisoned her mind against me. If anything happens between my wife and me I’m going to kill you. I’ll go up to your nosy Park Avenue office and kill you dead.”
Alone in the empty, silent rooms, he felt an undefinable fear that reminded him of his ghost-haunted babyhood. He sat on the bed, his shoes still on, cradling his knees with both arms. A line of poetry came to him. “My love, my love, my love, why have you left me alone?” He sobbed and bit his trousered knee.
After a while he called the places he thought she might be, accused friends of interfering with their marriage or of hiding Marian . . . When he called Mabel Goodley he had forgotten the episode of the early evening and he said he wanted to come around to see her. When she said it was three o’clock and she had to get up in the morning he asked what friends were for if not for times like this. And he accused her of hiding Marian, of interfering with their marriage and of being in cahoots with the evil psychiatrist. . . .
At the end of the night it stopped snowing. The early dawn was pearl gray and the day would be fair and very cold. At sunrise Ken put on his overcoat and went downstairs. At that hour there was no one on the street. The sun dappled the fresh snow with gold, and shadows were cold lavender. His senses searched the frozen radiance of the morning and he was thinking he shou
ld have written about such a day—that was what he had really meant to write.
A hunched and haggard figure with luminous, lost eyes, Ken plodded slowly toward the subway. He thought of the wheels of the train and the gritty wind, the roar. He wondered if it was true that in the final moment of death the brain blazes with all the images of the past—the apple trees, the loves, the cadence of lost voices—all fused and vivid in the dying brain. He walked very slowly, his eyes fixed on his solitary footsteps and the blank snow ahead.
A mounted policeman was passing along the curb near him. The horse’s breath showed in the still, cold air and his eyes were purple, liquid.
“Hey, Officer. I have something to report. My wife picked up the scissors at me—aiming for that little blue vein. Then she left the apartment. My wife is very sick—crazy. She ought to be helped before something awful happens. She didn’t eat a bite of supper—not even the little chicken liver.”
Ken plodded on laboriously, and the officer watched him as he went away. Ken’s destination was as uncontrollable as the unseen wind and Ken thought only of his footsteps and the unmarked way ahead.
The March
THE MARCH was sparked by the bombing of the Hilton Zion Church, but the bombing itself had been preceded by much unrest in the town; the church was a target because clergymen, both white and black, had convened there to discuss the poverty and backwardness of the town. Civil rights, of course, was the main issue. In the town of Hilton there was a law stronger than the law of Congress—that Southern whites and Negroes should not meet socially for any reason. Hilton would handle its own problems, as it had for more than a century.
Carson McCullers Page 22
